Golden Delights

Puke Ariki’s Heritage Collection is a fascinating mix of the unusual and the everyday. Along with some of the spectacular objects which tell stories about Taranaki, the collection also contains objects which hint at our daily lives, past and present. Many New Zealand homes would have a tin of Chelsea Golden Syrup, which is still made to the same recipe as when it was first produced in 1884. The Chelsea Sugar factory sits on an prime site on Auckland’s Birkenhead Point, and has been operating from there for 130 years. Golden syrup is pale treacle, made during the process of refining sugar. It adds moisture, colour and a caramel flavour to baking, most famously for Anzac biscuits. This blue and white coloured tin held 7 pounds of syrup – equivalent to 3 kilograms – meaning it would have been produced prior to 1969, when the metric system was introduced to New Zealand.